This is
issue #30 of the Pizzicato musical newsletter. It is intended to
help you to better know and use Pizzicato. You will find in it
various articles about Pizzicato, its use and aspects, but also
references to the music course and links to other music related
sites.

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festivals, exhibitions, CD publications, music training sessions,
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Editorial

Approaching music
composition is a goal that lots of musicians or non musicians
would like to realize. Is there a systematic method which, if
followed to the letter, would make it possible for a person
to compose?

Musical inspiration is
not really explained by theory. It is simply the creation or
combination of sounds in an original way, with a specific
goal or simply for fun. If the result is appreciated by
others, those can always try to explain why it sounds well,
why it is well built, etc. But this "afterwards"
explanation can be misleading, because one could conclude
from it that the musical work could have been deduced from
the theoretical explanation, whereas it is the reverse that
occurred.

If it
was only related to logic (whereas it is related to esthetics
above all), it would be all right to assemble all musical
theory rules and integrate them in a software. The computer
would then be able to have inspiration. Unfortunately, its
"inspiration" will be limited to copy, modify or
combine the inspiration of those who, by their esthetic
sense, succeeded to really create and whose works allowed to
deduce rules of musical theory.

Therefore, do not fall
into the trap: inspiration is above theoretical rules. In
other words, if you like some measures of your musical
composition, keep them even if these measures do not satisfy
any theoretical rule at all. The process of music evolution
is thus the following: inspiration makes it possible to
create musical works. When these works are appreciated,
people deduce from it some theoretical rules or musical
construction systems. Then these systems and rules are
studied by others. Where the latter fail, it is when they
think that they will have the inspiration only by studying
these systems of logic. They forget to place their share of
esthetics in it, the essential source of musical inspiration
and sound effects.

Do not fall either
into the opposite trap of rejecting all rules. Rules can
guide you, especially when you lack experimentation in
composition.

One could look at
music as a succession of distinct, small or great sound
effects, assembled to form a more global sound effect: a
musical work. For example, the passage from a G7 chord to a C
chord: it is a sound effect in the field of combination of
several sounds. It produces a sound effect that the ear
generally appreciates and it produces a specific atmosphere.
Similarly, each sequence of two chords is a sound effect. The
use of such or such rhythm is a sound effect. Combining two
instruments creates a sound effect. Each one of these small
effects can combine to create a larger sound effect, which is
then characterized by a specific personality.

A
melody is only a set of notes in a specific rhythm sequence,
each one being a specific sound effect. The combination forms
a melody, recognized among all others.

Thus music is a
construction of sound effects sufficiently personalized so
that a piece is unique and distinct from the others, while
communicating what its composer wished to communicate.

The spirit of
composition is thus to create sound effects to express
something. Any method which produces that is a valid method.
If a musician plays by ear and if, by research and work, he
methodically manages to isolate the various sound effects of
his instrument and if he can then selectively produce them in
a sensible way according to what he wants to express, then
one can say he composes music.

Let us break this into
three phases:

The
methodical location of sound effects

The
possibility of selectively reproducing them according
to what you want to express

The
coherent construction of musical work

The sound effects can
be located in various ways. Listening to lots of music with
an attentive ear will help you. But to do only that is likely
to make phase 2 very difficult, even impossible, because you
still cannot connect the sound effect to what you need to do
to produce it. The practice of an instrument will be
complementary, because it lets you associate the desired
sound effect to the technique to produce it. Listening and
playing will give you basis for inspiration, but you also
need some ability to synthesize and listen so as to mentally
classify and integrate the various effects your instrument
can produce.

Phase 2 is more
active. It implies that you have something to express, to
write into music. You can start from almost anything (an
emotion, a landscape, an idea, an atmosphere…). Then the
trick is to find, in the sound effects you assimilated, the
right combination that expresses your message and which is
specific to you. It is your capacity of choice and
creativity.

Phase 3 requires more
experiment and comes gradually. It concerns the ability to
develop a coherent work, where every element goes well
together. It is the link that will bind the ingredients. One
needs a link between the various passages of your work. This
link can be rhythmic, melodic or be based on combinations of
sound effects. Start with relatively short pieces before
writing a whole symphony.

These three phases are
interdependent. Only the practice of composition will help
you to refine these three phases.

The purpose of any
musical rule should be to help the composer to combine sound
effects while helping him to free his musical imagination and
stimulate his inspiration. Three types of rules could be met,
corresponding to the above described phases. And the software
tool can be very helpful in this direction. The current
version of Pizzicato already offers various tools. The next
versions will continue in this direction, the goal being to
help you to compose.

Dominique
Vandenneucker

Designer
of Pizzicato.

Aspects
and applications of Pizzicato...Discover
the various aspects and applications of Pizzicato

Methodology
to create a score

To
create a score, here is an effective method to get a correct
page-setting and avoid making certain symbol adjustment
operations twice. You can adapt it according to your needs.
If you often use the same kind of score, you can create a
template where several of these operations are already done
and start from there.

Start
from the score template called "One linear
measure", located in "Templates ==>
Templates". Work in linear mode (popup menu in
the tool bar of the score view).

Add the number of
measures and staves as needed.

Fill in the
instrument view, specifically the instrument names
and select the sonorities to be played.

Fill in the
characteristics of the instruments (double click in
front of the staves), specifically the measure
numbers, the braces…

Always in linear
mode, introduce the contents of the measures: notes,
rests, accents, symbols but not the symbols which
extend over several measures (slurs over several
measures, crescendo…). Use the automatic
justification for the notes encoding ("J"
check box in the tool bar of the score). If the
measures have several voices, use the voice menu if
those are too complex (popup menu on the left of the
score tool bar). Add comments in text blocks, but
only those related to the measures.

Place the chord
symbols if there are any as well as the lyrics.

Select all
measures of the score (Edit menu, Select all) then
justify all (Edit menu, Justify). The measure widths
are adapted to the content of the measures. You can
specify a scale factor to modify the density of the
score. It is accessible via the Option menu,
Justification.

Set the spaces
between staves in an optimal way. This spacing will
be used for all pages, therefore check if it is
appropriate to all measures of the score.

Switch to the
page mode. If the page setup dialog does not appear,
call it with the Page setup item in the File menu.
Select the print scale (Pro version only), adjust the
margins and disable the measures per system and
systems per page check boxes. Pizzicato will optimize
by taking the measure width into account. Check the
"Calculate" box and validate.

Review the pages
and adjust the number of measures per system and
systems per page as necessary by using the layout
tool. Arrange so that the score is well distributed
on all pages and that no a half empty page stays at
the end.

Once this is
done, you can review measures and adjust symbols and
add the symbols relating to several measures (large
slurs, crescendo…). Add the title, the page numbers
and any useful comment which must be fixed on a page.
You can then print your score.

This
method contains the main steps. Adapt it to your needs.

Tips and
advices for Pizzicato...Frequently asked questions about
Pizzicato

The width
of a measure

With Pizzicato
Beginner and Pro, you can modify the width of a measure by
using the measures and staves tool or the arrow tool, by
clicking just to the left of the right measure bar and by
moving the mouse. When you release, the measure is redrawn.
Its contents are automatically adapted (widened or
tightened).

If you do not wish its
contents adapted, you can do the same operation while holding
down the CTRL (Control) key on the keyboard. The measure
width is modified but its contents do not move.

If the measure is the
last of a system on a page, the measure bar is automatically
aligned on the right margin and thus it does not work. You
can bypass this limit by disabling the option "Adjust
systems horizontally on the page" in the page setup
dialog (File menu).

Enharmonic

Two notes are
enharmonics to each other if they bear a different name and
correspond to the same sound and to the same key on a musical
keyboard. F# is enharmonic to Gb.

The enharmonic tool is
located in the Notes and Rest palette: . It enables you to
change a note to its enharmonic, with a simple click. Its
shortcut is the "9" key. By placing the mouse
cursor on a note and by using the "9" key, the note
goes through its various enharmonics. Thus, the C note will
become D bb, then B # and then C again.

This tool is practical
in particular when you have transcribed a MIDI file in music
notation and if some accidentals do not correspond to the
logic of the music passage tonality.

The
beginner's corner...Musical
basics and access to the Pizzicato music course

MIDI

The goal of
MIDI

MIDI means Musical
Instrument Digital Interface. Its purpose is to transmit
the actions executed with a musical keyboard in a digital
form.

It is a
universally adopted language to exchange musical
information between synthesizers and computers.

When you hit a
note on a musical keyboard, the keyboard immediately
sends a message to its MIDI output. This message
communicates for example that the C-3 note has just been
pressed. When you release the note, another message is
instantaneously sent to express that the C-3 note is
released.

If a pedal is
connected to your synthesizer, the fact of pressing or
releasing this pedal also sends a MIDI message expressing
this action. Similarly, when you move a lever located on
your keyboard, it also generates MIDI messages.

In other words,
each action executed by the performer on his keyboard is
translated and instantaneously sent as a MIDI message to
the devices connected to it by a cable.

These standard
MIDI messages only contain numbers which characterize the
type and the content of the message. Those numbers are
instructions which command a synthesizer what to play and
how to play it. It is not a sound which goes through a
MIDI cable, but only a set of instructions used to
control a musical synthesizer.

When the computer
wants to play a score on a synthesizer, it simply sends
the necessary MIDI instructions to it, and the
synthesizer produces the sounds, not the computer. The
computer simply replaces the performer.

Therefore, the
sound quality depends only of the synthesizer which
executes the MIDI commands. MIDI does not have a
"sound quality". A MIDI message simply gives
the order "Play this note!" and the synthesizer
executes it with its capabilities.

http://hsc.csu.edu.au/music/composition/tips/ : some very interesting
articles about music composition methods. For example, Alan
Belkin's text, A practical guide to musical composition,
is the first of a series of four books he has written on
the art of composition. Planning a two minute
composition: Composer Matthew Hindson discusses ways
to plan a composition,...

To
discover music in an interactive way, Pizzicato
Light is quite enough. With it, you can write
exercises and little scores. The main limit of the program is
the way you can structure the score and also the number of
measures and staves you can use.

If you
want to create and print custom scores, you may update to the
Beginner and/or Professional versions. Consult the 5 pages
which describe the possibilities added by those versions: www.arpegemusic.com/partition1.htm

You
just need to wait for the next version... In the
meantime, a lot of things are still to be discovered in this
version and this letter will help you to do so. Ask us any
question so we can answer in the next issue of this letter.
You may also suggest us new functions to add in the next
release of Pizzicato. We listen to the users as best as we
can.